


Per Aspera, Ad Astra

by HeartOfStars



Series: Whatever It Takes [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brother Feels, But also, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Loki & Thor Friendship (Marvel), POV Thor (Marvel), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Thor Being Precious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 06:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20990234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartOfStars/pseuds/HeartOfStars
Summary: Latin: "Through hardships to the stars." Because we all need that hug that had to have taken place between Thor and Loki at the end of Ragnarok.





	Per Aspera, Ad Astra

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before Endgame came out in theaters, so the ending might seem a little off.

_There will never be a wiser king than you…or a better father. _

No wiser king. Certainly! No wiser king than the man who swept through worlds in his desire to conquer them, to subjugate them to his will, after slaughtering the women and children.

No better father. Without a doubt! No better father than the man who had given his daughter a place by his side, and then, the very second he doubted his purpose—he, not her, she had no part in it—he cast her aside, threw her in a dungeon, sired a son, and tried to pretend that she had never existed. No better father than the man who adopted a second son only for the purpose of creating an alliance with said son’s people; not to love the child, not to dote on the child, not to treat him as if he were—gods forbid!—an _equal _with his pure, Asgardian brother!

Ah, yes. No better father than that.

_No better father._

Had he actually said that? It was hard to believe, but then, it had been a few years ago. And he had been different then; humble, yes, but still brash and bloodthirsty and brutal. He had loved his father then, had worshipped him. But now…

Well. Thor supposed he loved his father; Odin had taught him things. Odin had banished him, after all, to teach him humility. But it was Jane who had taught him love, not Odin; the Captain who had taught him the value of honor and patriotism; Stark who had shown him never to judge a man by his appearance; Banner who had taught him to find the humanity in himself. Odin had shown him none of that. He had sent him away, yes; but his love for Jane had made him want to protect humans, and that desire had kept him coming back again and again and again, until he laughed at Barton and Romanoff’s antics, traded banter with the Captain, Steve, understood the great and famous Tony Stark, and found a friend in Banner. That was who he was, now: a man who got back up no matter how many times his enemies knocked him down; and Odin, the wise king and wonderful father, had not taught him that. His newfound friends had done that. He was not Odin, not his father’s son. Not the Allfather. He was Thor.

And yet…and yet, now he stood, in front of the mirror in the captain’s quarters, an eyepatch over the place where his eye used to be. Just like Odin. Was this the first step, then? Was this an illusion of change, only to turn him arrogant and cold like Odin? Wishing it didn’t exist, wishing he could turn back time and beg Hela—yes, beg! What would they all think of the mighty Thor after _that_—beg her to take his leg, his hand, his entire arm, anything but his eye, Thor ran a hand, gingerly, over the rough black eyepatch—

“It suits you.”

Smartass, Thor thought affectionately. He should have noticed Loki enter; he was too used to that by now. But illusions didn’t have to make a sound.

Slowly, he turned around, on the verge of snapping a retort; but then he stopped. He was glad for Loki, if only so that he could feel _something _besides sorrow. Loki kept him on his toes. He wanted to say so much, tell him everything, explain how the two of them could have become friends, long ago, if the benevolent All-Father had not been so selfish—

“Perhaps you’re not so bad after all, brother.” And yet, that was what came out: an understatement, and an overstatement, at the same time. Thor couldn’t help a wry smile. He had never known if he could trust Loki; and now, was it too much to hope that Loki would stay good? Maybe. But Thor had always believed in impossible things.

Loki smiled back—_maybe, maybe_. “Maybe not.”

It was such an ordinary conversation for the two of them that Thor couldn’t help speaking at least a bit of the truth, all that he really wanted out of his brother. “If you were here, I might even give you a hug.”

But Loki wasn’t really there; of course not. Thor didn’t care. There was a soap dish sitting behind him; he picked it up, weighed it for a moment in his hand, and tossed it, waiting for it to pass through the illusion, as the rock on Sakaar had done.

Loki caught it.

Thor’s surprise left him speechless.

“I’m here,” Loki said, sounding as flippant as he had in the days of their boyhood. Thor’s smile, stupidly, grew wider.

Their boyhood. When Odin had been a good man and Frigga alive and Asgard existing and everything so damned _certain_, his destiny written out for him—too much. It was too _much_. Thor realized then how in shock he still was, how much everything had changed for him. His world had turned upside down several times and somehow he had kept going, smiling, laughing it off; but laughing off the loss of everything that had ever mattered to him was getting more difficult by the day. So much had changed in such a short time; short for any ordinary man, like Stark or Banner, and even shorter for the son of Odin.

Only one thing—or, rather, person—had not changed. Loki.

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that, brother,” Thor found himself saying, before he was moving forward across the room, covering the last few feet between them, and wrapping his arms around his brother—real, solid, not an illusion, not a ghost—in a tight embrace.

This must have been the first time he had ever caught Loki purely by surprise. Thor felt his brother stiffen in his arms, and wondered if he had made a mistake; Loki had always been colder, less emotional, less _real_, and for a moment Thor thought Loki was going to stab him…and then two arms wrapped across his back and Loki had returned the embrace, clinging to his brother as if he was the only thing he had left in the universe. Thor could not remember a time when Loki had reciprocated any displays of emotion, even a _hint _of love, this much, and he clasped his brother tighter in response. Not even when Frigga had died—

Suddenly Thor’s previous thought caught up to him. _The only thing left in the universe._ A strange lump of emotion grew in his chest. It was true, much as he hated to deny it: Loki, the brother who had betrayed him at every turn, was the only person or thing of worth left who he really loved. The Captain was a good comrade, Stark was entertaining, Banner had shown a…surprising depth, and Valkyrie had grown on him in the last few days—but Loki, _Loki_…Loki was his family. So he had stolen Thor’s throne and tried to take over Earth—_killed eighty people in two days,_ Romanoff’s sarcastic rasp echoed in his ear—and thrown Odin out of Asgard and essentially caused Hela to return and put Thor in the Grandmaster’s arena…but, Thor realized, he didn’t care.

Because maybe, that was Loki’s attempt at showing Thor how much he cared about him. Loki had never really learned _how _to show love, instead how to repress it and manipulate emotions to get what he wanted. Maybe, just maybe, all their conflict over the years had just been a misunderstanding between two brothers: one who didn’t understand love, and one who thought everyone did.

But now, maybe things were different.

“I understand now,” Loki said, and Thor let go of him, noticing with a smile that Loki didn’t seem to want to look at him.

Understand what? Love? Was Loki able to read minds now? Thor hoped not. If that were true, his life was about to get infinitely worse.

“Understand what?”

“Why those bastards you befriended seem to like you so much,” Loki said, finally looking at Thor. A smirk was hanging on the corners of his mouth. “Humans are so ridiculously friendly. It’s absurd. Of course they’d like you, and of course I’d disgust them.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Thor threw an arm around Loki’s shoulder, and for once his brother didn’t seem to mind. “After all, I was still a moron then, and you—well—“

“Moron. Did you pick that up from Stark? If so, I could think up worse insults than that.”

“Of course you could. But maybe we have to insult one another.” Thor tightened his arm around Loki’s shoulder. _He’s all I have left—and we still can’t give each other a break._ “We’re brothers, after all.”

** LATER**

_You will never—be a god—_

_What more could I lose?_

_You…should have gone for the head!_

Thor’s hands tightened on the hilt of Stormbreaker. He had staked everything on that one moment, on avenging the life of the last thing he had really loved…and he had failed. He had spent his strength, his energy, and very nearly his life, but it hadn’t mattered. It had all been for nothing.

Thanos had won.

And Loki had died in vain.

Loki was not coming back, that he was sure of. The Captain believed he could bring back those who had died in what was now called the Snap…but Loki had died before. He would not be returning. Thor would never see the mischievous smirk, never laugh, never be stabbed…never hug his brother, or touch him, ever again.

But he could make Thanos sorry for taking that away from him.

_And I **will **do it, brother,_ he swore, looking up to the sky and imagining that Loki was smiling down at him, from his place beside Frigga and Heimdall and even the father Thor had come to despise. _Whatever it takes._


End file.
